Depths of Peril - Indie Development Interview @ Rampant Coyote

Jay "Rampant Coyote" Barnson chats to Soldak's Steven Peeler (Depths of Peril) in this interview about indie game development:

Rampant Coyote: Any other comments you want to make about the difference between mainstream & indie development?
In the mainstream industry, no one would have let me create Depths of Peril or bring it to the Mac. This is the big difference between being an indie and working in the mainstream. As an indie, I have the freedom to try new things and I don’t have to have proof that it will be a financial success.
One of the other big differences is, as an indie, I work directly for the gamers. I sell directly to gamers through our website and I talk directly to gamers through our forums.
At a mainstream developer, you directly make games for publishers. Obviously, ultimately you want to please the gamers. However, you pitch your game idea or prototype to publishers. The publisher is the one that decides whether or not your game gets made. The publisher pays you. Most developers never make any money except what the publisher gives them. So like I said, at a mainstream developer, most of the time, you are making games for publishers, not the gamers.

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Personally my biggest disappointment is how much piracy that goes on in the PC market. Since we are a small developer, that has a hard time getting attention, you would think we would have very little piracy. Unfortunately, that’s not the case at all. It’s depressing how many sites are pirating Depths of Peril.

This saddens Yeesh. I don't think anyone has a handle on exactly how much of PC gaming's decline can be attributed to ease of piracy, in fact I don't think there's any way to find out for sure. But my feeling is that piracy takes a bite out of every dev's returns, and the effect is actually more damaging the smaller the company.

I wish there were some way to have effective copy protection that doesn't make the gamer community freak out. Other than actual paid accounts, I don't know what can be done. Maybe there will come a time when every single PC game is online; that's the only way a dev can be sure to get money from each customer.

We have to install a sense of worth into the gamers in order to make them pay for what's worth to be payed for.